


King, Oh, King

by preblematic



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Dark Comedy, F/M, M/M, Mad King Ryan, Mildly Dubious Consent, Supernatural Elements, king AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 18:05:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3391106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preblematic/pseuds/preblematic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Ryan who kisses him this time. He doesn't know if Gavin is a demon or a wizard or a fucking fairy, but he's always been attracted to power, and the black-eyed man now seems to exude it from his core.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Play a Game with Me?

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect Two Hundred Dollars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3218003) by [preblematic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/preblematic/pseuds/preblematic). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been a while since i, like, posted stuff. sorry about that

It begins shortly after the Mad King rises to power, very shortly. Blood is still flowing freely from the corpse of the previous king, and the new royal has only just donned the crown when a young man enters the throne room.

Ryan is sitting on the throne, crown askew but not willing to fix it in front of the stranger. His clothes are blood soaked and tattered in places, his eyes red from the smoke whose source is impossible to know. He does his best to look commanding, not sure if this newcomer is here to usurp the usurper.

The man is a bit tall and very thin, gangly. The profile of his face and color of his hair are hard to discern under the shadow of his splotched green hood--everything he wears is splotched green in varying shades and hues, reminiscent of those exploding beasts for which everyone has a different name. A long scarf hangs down on either side of his neck.

Ryan sees a bow and quill slung over one shoulder and rests his hand on his sword. He is tired, but willing to defend himself until more of his men can arrive, if necessary. There is no need.

The young man kneels before the throne, head down. His gaze flickers to the dead king, and he smiles.

"Why are you here?" Ryan asks, looking down.

"I held no loyalty for your predecessor," the man says in an accented voice, still looking down. He is well trained, not daring to look a new king in the eye until given permission. Ryan wonders how many times he has done this. "And I shall hold no loyalty for you," he adds. "I come only to offer you a challenge."

"A challenge?" Ryan echoes. "What is your name, trickster?"

"Gavin Free, king." Gavin refuses to call him 'my king.' No one will ever be  _his_  king.

"And tell me, what is this challenge?"

"Play a game with me," Gavin says, line of sigh never leaving Ryan's boots. "I played it with old king, and every one before him."

"And what do I get if I win this game?" Ryan is leaning forward in his throne now, elbow resting on his knee, head resting on his fist.

"My loyalty and service," Gavin says.

"You said you shall hold no loyalty for me," Ryan hedges.

"You won't win." Ryan looses a laugh at that statement. "You think I'm useless." It is not a question.

"Prove me wrong," Ryan says, quirking an eyebrow.

In the span of about four seconds, Gavin wields his bow, knocks an arrow, and pierces the jugular of the woman brandishing a knife, unnoticed, not two feet from the new king. Ryan is slightly shell shocked, but really not all that impressed.

"There are many good archers," he says, looking from the woman's twitching corpse back to Gavin. Except Gavin isn't there anymore.

"You're just like all the others," he says. His voice sounds like it is coming from everywhere at once. Then, quick as he was gone, he is back again, this time standing next to the throne. "You have no desire for  _risk_." He leans down and hisses the last word in to Ryan's ear, but he still looks down and away.

"You may look at me," Ryan says, tiring of not seeing the man's face. He glances over, but Gavin is not there. He's moved back to kneeling before the throne, closer this time.

"How kind." He flips back his hood, and Ryan resists the urge to scream. He has no eyes. This man has no eyes, just blackness.

"Do you accept the challenge?" Gavin asks, willfully oblivious to Ryan's inner turmoil. He stands and begins slowly walking toward the throne. "It would be unwise to keep me waiting." 

"I-I don't know the terms of it, yet," Ryan sputters, doing his very best to meld with the back of the throne.

Gavin rests one hand on the high back of the stone throne, caging Ryan in with his body. He looks easy to move, but Ryan's not so sure now. He swallows and looks up at his captor.

This close he can see that he was wrong, Gavin does have eyes, behind his unnecessarily large nose. They are pure black and ringed in thick, jagged lines of black paint. Gavin blinks slowly at him, like a cat deciding if the prey is worth the chase.

"The rules," Gavin says eventually," are easy." And Ryan can see that his tongue is split down the middle for a solid inch. He runs both ends of it over his surely unnaturally pointed teeth before he speaks again. "Keep me entertained, or kill me."

"How am I to use your 'loyalty and service' if you're dead?"

"You will have it so long as I don't go bored. Do you accept the challenge?"

"What does 'entertained' mea--"

"Do you accept the challenge?" Gavin asks again.

"I really don't think this is--"

Gavin leans down, eye level with Ryan. "Do you accept the challenge?" His breath fans across Ryan's face, and it's cool. Not at all how breath should be.

"Yes!" Ryan says suddenly, willing to do anything to stop those eyes from blackening his very soul. "I accept the challenge."

A small smile quirks the corners of Gavin's mouth. "There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Then he does that last thing Ryan was expecting and kisses him.

Ryan goes stock still, wondering if this is the part where he's accidentally sold his soul or some shit, but Gavin seems pretty intent on just kissing him. He seems most intent on gnawing on his bottom lip, and Ryan confirms that those teeth are indeed sharper than a normal person's.

Gavin stops his very important work when he tastes blood before the king opens his mouth. "At this rate, you'll have to kill me before the sun rises, won't you."

"What?"

"You're being very boring."

"Well, I--"

"Sir!"

Suddenly, Gavin is not leaning over him. He is, in fact, nowhere to be seen, but an echoing laughter, like a bird call, fills the great hall for a few moments.

Ryan and the soldier are left alone. The latter looking around and holding his sword out toward thin air. Ryan sighs and beckons him closer. "What do you need to tell me?"

The young man sheaths his sword and offers a shaky salute. "We've secured the castle."

"Have you carried out my orders?"

"All who proclaim loyalty to the old king are being disposed of as we speak."

Before Ryan can praise his men's efficiency, another, lilted voice interrupts them. "Nuh-uh," Gavin says, pretending to check for dirt under his nails--he's wearing  _gloves_. He crosses his ankles over the arm of the throne-- _Ryan's_  throne. He's sitting on  _Ryan's lap._ "He's telling lies, he is."

"I am not! What kind of--"

Gavin holds one hand toward the offended soldier and makes a shutting motion with his hand. "Alright, he's ignorant, then." He stops inspecting his right hand for nonexistent dirt and looks over. "That okay with you?"

The man, unable to open his mouth, nods with wide eyes. "Good. Glad we cleared that up. Now then. The cook, the gardener, the captain of the guard, and that little hellion who works the stables all owe their lives to old dead and dying over there. They won't 'profess loyalty,' but they've got to go. The cook should've gone  _ages_  ago. Find someone who can cook a decent spider eye, would you, dear?"

Ryan is suitably confused by the being--because surely Gavin is no mere _man_ \--sitting in his lap and calling him 'dear' and ordering around his men. He seems to have released his hold on the soldier's mouth, however. "Should I do as he says, sir?"

"Yes, I suppose so," Ryan says. "It can't hurt anything." The man scrambles away with another shaky salute, and Gavin's trilling laughter follows him.

"I promise I won't be so forward most of the time," Gavin says, slinging an arm over Ryan's shoulder. "After a few centuries the scrambling for organization grows pretty dull."

"What are you?" Ryan asks, ignoring the way Gavin's fingers are petting along his neck.

"I'm the judge," Gavin says. "Tied to that pretty hat you've got on." He taps two fingers against the black metal of the crown.

"What does that even mean?"

"Tell you later. You'd better be getting off this throne and go make sure everything's going okay. You can sleep in the king's room tonight. Won't that be nice." He grabs a handful of Ryan's hair and tugs his face down, level with his own; Ryan stays silent only by sheer force of will. "They changed the sheets this morning. I told them to. His time was up."

Gavin kisses him again, one for the road, then disappears. "Fix the tax on wheat," his voice says vaguely, then silence.

Ryan stays seated for a moment, processing things. He had heard rumors. Everyone had heard rumors of the demon that stalks the palace halls. Ryan had always just thought it an old wives' tale, told to add some kind of mystique to the hardships of ever changing rulership. But now he'd be damned if they weren't true, in some form, at least.

He needs to find his general. He needs to get someone to oversee the removal of the corpses. He needs to find the mistress of the castle and see to it that the servants are in order, or, if she happened to be loyal to his predecessor, he needs to hire a new mistress and see to it that all the servants are in order. He needs to do a lot of things.

Ryan stands from the throne and takes slow, heavy steps toward the door. He idly kicks at the old king's corpse. He was a young man. All the kings have been young men, none of them ever staying enthroned long enough to grow old, and the revolts are always bloody.

The longest monarch had stayed for ten years. She had been queen when Ryan was young. Now he wonders what she had done to piss Gavin off. He wonders if anyone's ever refused his challenge. He wonders what entertains the being.

Sighing, he chases the thoughts from his head and focuses on more pressing matters. General, corpse removal, mistress--these are pressing matters. What ever the, apparently immortal, being who haunts the castle wants can wait.

\----

Ryan doesn't sleep in the king's room that night. Ryan doesn't sleep that night. The captain of the guard got away from the soldiers pursuing him, and Ryan has to spend most of the night organizing searches for him.

When they finally track him down Ryan thinks they've caught the wrong guy. The young man in a bear skin and bright yellow shorts can't possibly be the person in charge of the security of the entire castle. He's in a tree, apparently against his better judgment if the way he's cursing is anything to go by.

"Burn it down," Ryan says, when asked what they should do. The base of the tree is surrounded by a band of soldiers trying to reach one of the lower branches with a ladder. Ryan wonders how the man got up there in the first place. "If he survives, hire him."

"Fuck  _off_ ; I'm telling you, I don't give a  _shit_  about the dead fuckface!" the man is screaming from the tree. Ryan wouldn't be surprised if those in the town can hear him. "If you'd just let me ex--GAVIN YOU PIECE OF SHIT!"

That gets Ryan's attention away from the thought of finally getting some sleep in a real bed. He focuses back on the tree. Gavin is floating lazily in the air next to the branch that the other man is perched on. He's lying back, ankles crossed, and he has shed his cloak. The shirt he's wearing is deep, dark green, and his frankly ridiculously long scarf is fluttering up and down as he bobs slowly in the air.

"Aw, Michael, don't be like that," he says, pouting. He twists in the air until his pouting face is upside down in Michael's sight. "It's just a bit of a fun." 

"I will shove my sword  _up your ass,"_ Michael promises.

"Michael," Gavin whines.

"Gavin," Michael sneers.

Gavin pouts deeper at him for a moment. " _Fine_ ," he says, put upon. He flips around to be right side up and opens his arms in invitation to Michael. "You're so fussy."  _  
_

"Oh, well,  _excuse me_  for not wanting to be burned alive. Sorry to be a such a fucking  _burden,_ " Michael snarks. He reaches out and clings to Gavin's shoulders as the floating man lowers them both down to the ground. _  
_

"Excuse me, 'cuse me, 'cuse--get out of my fucking  _way_." The unbroken line of soldiers around the tree shifts as a woman with long, deep red hair muscles her way through them. "Michael! Gavin, you asshole!"

"Jesus, Lindsay, has everybody gone crazy around here?" Gavin complains as he sets Michael on the ground.

Ryan, who had made his way to the outskirts of the crowd around the tree, walks toward the trio, the crowd parting for him. Blood is still flaking off of the crown on his head, and something about his face must scream barely contained frustration, because no one even meets his eyes. The sun starts to peek over the horizon, and Ryan's frown deepens. 

"What is going on here, Gavin?" he asks, coming to a stop a few feet from the three at the base of the tree. Gavin's face lights up when he sees him.

"Hello!" he says, flipping up into the air so he can loop his arms lazily around and rest his head on Ryan's shoulders. "Michael!" he says excitedly, rubbing his head against Ryan's neck. "Michael, this is Ryan! He's mine now. Been pretty boring so far, but it's only the first night, ye?"

Michael looks Ryan over warily from behind Lindsay, who is simultaneously calling him an idiot and checking for injuries. Ryan thinks that the squinting is because Michael is extra suspicious and mentally marks that as a point in the younger man's favor, but really it's just because Michael couldn't find his glasses before he had to run for his god damned life.

"Ye, all right. He seems okay," Michael says noncommittally.


	2. Bleed Me Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can't escape the Joelay.

It turns out that Lindsay is the castle's mistress. Gavin trusts both her and her husband implicitly, and Ryan has decided that he's going to vaguely trust anyone Gavin approves of, at least for now. If the being wants Ryan dead he could probably just snap his fingers.

"Why did you tell me to kill your friend?" Ryan asks Gavin as he trudges wearily on toward a meeting with his advisors and general and just really every vaguely important person.

The sun has risen, and he hasn't slept. The being is floating along after him, pointing things out as they go.

( _"And this is where I go when I'm sad,"_ and "The _soldiers blow each other back there. They don't talk about it, but everybody knows,"_ and " _Sometimes ducks swim in this fountain.")_

"Cause I thought it'd be funny," Gavin says with a shrug. Ryan looks at him with scrunched eyebrows. "Well it was," he says defensively.

"To you," Ryan says. "You're a crazy motherfucker."

"That was uncalled for, king. You wound me." He puts both hands over his heart like he's been shot, hangs upside down in the air, and does his best impression of a dead man.

Ryan keeps walking even as Gavin stops to float dramatically, and after five seconds or so the being has to scramble to catch up with him. Ryan rolls his eyes at the theatrics. Gavin continues to chatter almost nonstop for the rest of the walk.

They've set up the meeting in what looks like a small--by castle standards only--dining hall. Lindsay is there, and so is her husband who's still squinting at everyone. Ryan wonders if he's always this suspicious of newcomers.

"Ryan!" Kerry, Ryan's assistant, pushes through the various official looking people milling about in the room to reach the king. He's holding an armful of papers and scrolls, and in his other hand he has a quill that is slinging ink on himself and everyone around him as he he frantically waves and pushes toward Ryan. At his exclamation, everyone in the room turns to look at the newly crowned royal.

Ryan's men are all staring at the being lounging comfortably five feet off the ground in midair, but all of the individuals who have been at the castle for some time before hand don't spare him a glance. They are well acquainted with the being's shenanigans. He floats over toward Michael, and Ryan considers it no longer his duty to watch him.

Kerry ignores everything that isn't Ryan and what he's supposed to be telling Ryan. Kerry is a good assistant. Ryan should appreciate him more.

"Ryan, thank god, okay, so most of the servants really don't care about another new king. One of the manservants had a heart attack and died, but we're really not sure if that was us or just his heart, poor old guy. The officials have seen enough coups that most of them don't really--"

He stops his stream of information as though realizing something. He turns and addresses the now silent room. "Go back to your chats, people. We'll call you when we're ready." Kerry waves his hand (the one holding the quill), as though shooing away pigeons, as he speaks. The room begins buzzing again soon after.

He turns back to Ryan. "I like being the king's assistant," he says appreciatively. "What was I saying?" He motions for Ryan to follow him to a corner while they talk.

"The officials?" Ryan prods, following sluggishly. His sleep deprived mind is focusing mostly on absorbing and processing information. Words are nearly beyond his capabilities at this point.

"The officials, right! Okay, so, Joel over there is in charge of the treasury, and I think as long as we let him count coins and don't try to take away his toy he'll go along with us."

As he speaks, the short blond motions to a thin, scruffy man with dark hair. He is tall, Ryan's height or more. Next to him is a shorter, younger man with unruly dark hair. The taller man, Joel, is talking in a constant, muted stream to the shorter, whose hand is resting comfortingly on Joel's shoulder. He nods with understanding as he listens.

"The puppy is Ray. To be honest, I don't really know what he does. As near as I can tell they keep him on call and just sort of aim him at Joel sometimes.

"That's Geoff, and that's Geoff's mustache, the glorious bastard--"

"Kerry! I have not slept since--I haven't slept. Cut to the chase."

"Right. So that's Geoff. He...does stuff. Really I've only been at this for like, an hour? I'm not sure why half of these people are getting paid. I think Geoff's the architect? Or like the architect's drunk uncle? We'll figure it out."

"Kerry, do I need to be here?" Ryan asks seriously. He would really settle for a piece of floor and a towel at this point.

"Not really? I can brief you in the morning. Oh, but I'll need Miles. He takes better notes than I do."

"Then you'd better find him," Ryan says. "I'm goin' to bed."

"Where?" Kerry asks.

"Dunno," Ryan answers. "Gavin!" He yells at the being. Gavin is draped over both Michael and Lindsay, discussing something with the latter while he plays with Michael's ear.

His head pops up like a squirrel's when he hears Ryan call. Gavin quickly finishes his conversation with Lindsay and leaves the couple. He floats over the crowd to Ryan stopping to rest horizontally, eye level with him.

"Yes, king?" he asks.

"I believe earlier I was promised a bed, with clean sheets."

Gavin's face lights up, and he chirps happily. "You were," he agrees, crossing one leg over the other and bouncing it up and down," would you like a guide, king?"

"That would be  _lovely_."

Kerry, for his part, is just watching the conversation go down with a sort of vague concern, not noticing that some of his papers flutter from his grasp. He's also trying not to get shocked by the tangible sexual tension crackling through the air, but he seems to be in that position a lot.

Gavin twirls around to be behind Ryan and pushes him toward the door. "Kerry's in charge!" Ryan has the presence of mind to ordain and he is pushed from the room.

The whole crowd has gone quiet again, watching and wondering what shenanigans the new monarch will get up to. They watch as the floating being excitedly drags the king from their midst. Some chalk it up to Gavin's eccentricities; others wonder whether their leader is still of sound mind; and still others know the truth.

Ray, the master of brevity and wit that he is, puts it best. "They're gonna fuck!" he says, loudly, as the large wooden doors close behind the pair.

\----

Gavin leads the way to Ryan's new bedroom, which the king has yet to see, and he does not shut up the whole way there. By the time they reach the door Ryan knows where every room of the palace is; Gavin's ranking of the rainbow colors from best to worst; and what is Gavin's  _favorite_  organ to eat when people  _occasionally_  (once every could of centuries) offer him sacrifices. (It's the penis. Always makes everyone watching really uncomfortable.)

"And here we are!" Gavin says waving his arms to indicate a door that is much bigger than it really needs to be, but is otherwise unremarkable. The being goes to open the door, finds it locked, and then jams his pinky in the keyhole--which is definitely smaller than his pinkie--and wiggles it around until there's the small "clink" of the lock unlatching.

Gavin opens the door and waves his hand to indicate the room in all its splendor. And, yeah, Ryan vaguely notes that this room is pretty fucking nice, but his eyes zero in on the bed, and he is a man with a mission.

The new king marches forward with single-minded determination and falls face down on to the bed. His feet hang off the edge, and he works on wriggling his feet out of his boots even as his eyelids droop and the crown falls off his head and skitters on to the floor. His boots finaly come off, and he's too tired to realize that it's because Gavin pulls them off. (If he  _had_  noticed he would've made some kind of  _"Undressing me already?"_  quip, rest assured.)

He doesn't even bother getting under the blanket, just grabs a pillow and passes out. Gavin watches him sleep. Not to be creepy or anything, he just doesn't have anything to do. Eventually sometime during the night he starts playing with the crown that fell to the floor.

\----

Ryan wakes up with a start, and his gut fills with panic when he can't find his knife under his pillow. There's a weight on his back like someone sitting on top of him, and he's wondering if he can buck his hips hard enough to throw them off when he feels a pair of lips against the back of his neck.

"Woah, what the fuck?" he asks, trying to turn over. Hands push down on his shoulders to hold him in place.

"No, down, stay still you little trumpet."

"Gavin?! The fuck."

"Bored," is all Gavin says, hands running along Ryan's arms.

"No. What?" Ryan thrashes, but only manages to get himself face up under Gavin. The being is still straddling his stomach and holding him down.

"I said,' Stay  _still,'"_  Gavin growls, and Ryan is struck by the sight of him. His lips pull back to expose those sharp teeth, split tongue visible. He stares down at the king, pupiless black eyes narrowed and predatory.

Ryan's eyes widen and he swallows, goes still. "There, good king," Gavin praises and relaxes immediately. He rests both his hands on Ryan's throat, meeting at the wrists, thumbs running over his Adam's apple. "Who's a good little fledgling, hm?" He presses down on the king's throat, and Ryan panics, but stays stock still.

Gavin leans down and kisses him again, but this time Ryan gets the memo and opens his mouth. The duality of the being's tongue is unsettling, but not off putting. He's not really kissing the being back, and it feels like Gavin is just taking stock of his teeth, running either side of his tongue carefully over each one of them. 

He presses down quickly on Ryan's throat before letting up again, and Ryan makes a noise of panic in his throat, bites Gavin's tongue. Gavin moans like he's just had three simultaneous orgasms, so Ryan does it again.

Somehow Ryan's first real day as king has begun with him being molested by a masochistic supernatural being, and he can honestly say he was not expecting any part of this. He bites Gavin's tongue again and tastes blood; Gavin keens. Working on a hunch, Ryan fists a hand in the being's hair and pulls. This works out beautifully, and Gavin actually pulls away from the kiss to moan about it.

His tongue hangs down over his teeth and bottom lip, dripping blood on to Ryan's chin as he pants. A few moments later he swallows and smiles down at Ryan. "There we are, love. That wasn't so hard was it?"

Ryan's panting is for an entirely different reason than Gavin's. He's scared  _shitless._ Gavin is grinding whatever sort of equipment he's got in his green pants down against Ryan's stomach, but Ryan's pretty sure he couldn't get it up if he  _tried_  right now. The hands around his throat aren't pressing anymore, but they're still there. That by itself is enough to unsettle him, not to mention the whole non-consensual aspect and the fact that he's really kind of not sure where he is right now or what time it is. He is confused and scared and there's a horny, possibly all powerful being writhing on top of him. 

"Uh," Ryan says intelligently.

Gavin leans down and bites Ryan's bottom lip, hard. He then sits back up and squeezes Ryan's throat again, a parting gesture. "Be seeing you, king," he says, licking his own lips and leaving a smear of red around his mouth. He grins at Ryan, and then he's gone.

Ryan stays lying on the large bed and tries to calm his pounding heart, tell it that it's okay, they' still trekking. When his breathing finally returns to normal he realizes that he is starving, and has no idea what time it is.

As if on cue, the bedroom door bursts open and Kerry enters, usually stack of papers in hand, quickly followed by Miles who has a more organized looking  _book_  for notekeeping in one hand. In the other hand is something that Ryan cares about a lot more right now: food. 

"Good, you're already up!" Kerry says, dropping his clutter on to the first raised horizontal surface he comes across; it's an end table by a chair in front of the fireplace. All of these things Ryan is noticing for the first time.

"Food," the king says hopefully to Miles. 

"Ah, yes," Miles says, walking over to the bed with the plate of food he's holding. He sets it down on the bed next to Ryan, who sits up properly to get at it. "You've got a little, uh." Miles makes a swiping motion over his own chin, indicating.

Ryan winces, knowing he has Gavin's dried blood on his face. He had kind of hoped that was all some kind of weird dream. "Yeah," he says, doing nothing about the stains on his face and biting in to an apple instead. 

"Right." Miles gives a tight smile and goes back over to Kerry. 

Ryan watches as he reprimands Kerry's disorganization and starts picking up scattered papers. The two go about moving all of the blond's notes and papers to the more appropriate large desk near the window, and Miles attempts to put them in some kind of order. Ryan mentally starts preparing himself for a barrage of boring but necessary information and chews his apple. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh rating'll probably go up at some point


End file.
